1. Field of Use in Industry
The present invention relates to a tile application backing material which facilitates the application of tiles, as well as to a tile application execution method using this backing material.
1. Technological Background
Conventionally, among construction methods which facilitated tile affixing operations, a tile attachment method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application, Second Publication, Sho 63-289160 was known, in which a dry construction method was used in which a board having tiles affixed thereto in advance was attached on-site, and furthermore, the difficulties of the on-site adjustment in this dry construction method were solved.
This tile attachment method utilized a tile mat comprising hardened rubber or the like and having formed therein a plurality of tile engaging grooves; in this method, the tile mat was set and attached on-site at the position at which tiles were to be laid, and tiles were inlaid in these tile engaging grooves and attached. Here, stringing operations or the like for the purpose of allocating tile attachment positions are not necessary, as was the case with the dry construction method referred to above, and in addition, on-site setting is easily accomplished, so that a high degree of skill is not required of the operator.
However, in the method using the above tile mat, it is obvious that when the tiles are merely engaged in the tile mat, they can be easily removed by an outside force, and even if the tiles are attached in such a manner that adhesive is applied to the lower surface thereof, each tile is attached only to the tile mat, which is flexible, so that it is difficult to maintain the strength required for maintaining the optimum tile attachment position.
That is to say, in the case in which the tile mat is attached by means of a lapped flat seam or the like, if, for example, the tile mat is deformed as a result of changes in temperature or humidity or the like, there is a possibility that the tile will, together with the tile mat, partially lift away from the laying surface. In addition, it is possible, for example, to reduce the possibility of this occurring by adhering the entire tile mat to the laying surface; however, in this case, the amount of work involved in the application of the adhesive increases, the amount of adhesive required increases greatly, and in addition, the tile mat cannot be easily removed, so that reallocation and the like becomes difficult, and the ease of the laying operation, which is the primary beneficial characteristic, is reduced. That is to say, with the conventional tile mat as described above, it was impossible to avoid these types of difficulties and to attach the tiles so that they would not lift away from the backing.
Furthermore, the tile engaging grooves described above were simple rectangular concavities, so that it was necessary to consider the amount of adhesive used when inlaying tiles, so that with respect to this point, skill was required. That is to say, in order to adhere the tiles to the tile mat with a high degree of reliability, it was necessary to place adhesive in the interstices around the tiles, and as a result of this, when the tiles were inlaid, only that amount of adhesive sufficient to cause extrusion of adhesive into the periphery of the tiles is necessary; however, if there is excess adhesive, adhesive will extrude to the surface of the tiles, and the finishing of the surface will be difficult. Furthermore, it is necessary to standardize the amount of adhesive in each concavity, so that the amount of adhesive must be controlled for each concavity in accordance with the size of the tiles.
A method for the laying of tiles in which a framework comprising bars assembled into a lattice form was applied to the laying surface of the tiles, the spaces formed by this framework were used for allocation, and the tiles were laid, was disclosed in Japanese Patent Application, First Publication, Laid-open No. Hei 1-304257. This method was characterized in that there were no problems such as the lifting away of the tile mat, and moreover, allocation by means of stringing and the like was not necessary; however, the guiding functions of the framework at the time of the positioning of the tiles were extremely poor, and it was not a method by which the laying of the tiles could be easily accomplished by an unskilled worker, as the operation required was not a simple one such as the inlaying of tiles.
Furthermore, this type of tile application backing material consists of connecting portions providing connectivity to another adjoining tile application backing material. Using the connectivity at the various connecting portions, the tile application backing materials can be made to correspond to a laying surface over a wide extent.
As shown in FIG. 35, the connecting portion 101 of the tile application backing material is formed by a dividing plate portion 103 with a base portion 102, and a plate portion 105 with penetrating holes 104 into which can be fitted the base portion 102 of the dividing plate portion 103.
Thus, because the plate portion 105 is stacked on the upper part of the dividing plate portion 103, and the base portion 102 of the dividing plate portion 103 is fitted into the penetrating holes 104 of the plate portion 105, the tile application backing material can be connected.
However, in this type of tile application backing material, when connection occurs at the connecting portion 101, the plate portion 105 is tacked on the upper part of the dividing plate portion 103. At the stacking point, the adhesive does not easily flow onto the laying surface, and the connecting portion 101 will peel off of the laying surface; thus tile application might not be effective using this method.